I agree that they, like any word, can be overused and lose strength,...

Occam

Sounds like a good plan to me! I second that idea.

Mriana - 13 September 2012 05:52 PM

I thought pussy was a cat and my cat often acts like real pussy, more than Pus in Boots ever did. :D

I do like to pet and kindly scratch the pussy cats around the neck, they seem to enjoy it. They are kinda cute, when they’re not being unhygienic. I guess that’s why they like me so much. Really, even cats that seem to avoid everyone, seem to like me. :shrug: But if referring to a woman’s anatomy, I appreciate Monet’s gift to us, lets call them water lilies. I feel very sad and worried about Pussy Riot, what will Putin do to them?

Gay once seemed like a taboo word… can’t we end that taboo? Generally this social ban against some words is a bad thing, and should end.

I think that the intellectually lazy people are the ones who don’t understand that democracy is about raising up the commoners with education and freedom of speech and conscience. And so when one hears a little colloquial word here or there… aren’t there bigger things to worry about? Really? Taboos don’t educate people, only exposing them to a larger variety of words does.

Raising a middle finger at someone is the polite way of expressing the idea that a person should get away from you before you loose your temper. In Scotland, I hear that if you angered a man, he’d lift up his kilt to show you the real thing when he’s angry at you, rather than merely a finger.

On the other hand, I recently heard one man cursing out another who asked him to be quiet while in the library. The cell phone user said, “I’m a f**king ni**er! ”, “You f**k off! ”, “You get the f**k away from me. ” And a variety of thinly veiled threats, on-and-on for several minutes after the other man left. Veiled threats are crossing the line, in my eyes. They’re not helping to dispel some wasteful taboos, but instead they are damaging to society in many ways. Isn’t that kind of behavior what people are really being defensive about, when it comes to tabooing the “four letter words”?

Quite true, H-C, but with or without the identifying expletives “whack dat guy” demonstrates the low level of reason and rationality of the characters that causes me to quickly lose interest in that kind of story.

Occam

I agree Occam, I have never understood why people buy into the gangster mistique. Movies like “The Godfather” and “scarface” That glorify the mafia and thug life really disgust me. It’s life destroying bullying, illicit drug use, mass killing, hedonism by knuckle dragging sociopaths whose only reason for being is to terrorize and control the “suckers”. They’re nothing but little nazis, who utilized the same tactics but on a grander scale. anyone who wants to see the effects of out of control gangsterism should study Chicago in the 20’s where the gangs used automatic weapons on themselves and innocent victims. Of course, it did lead to the creation of the FBI.

Cap’t Jack

<shrug> To each their own.

I really liked the Sopranos because it was this weird dichotomy… Just when you’d almost feel sympathetic to any of the characters you realized how truly awful they were. I thought it was a good character-based story. Regardless, it still wouldn’t have worked without the swearing, IMO.

I have studied the history of organized crime to a degree. For whatever reason, I find it quite fascinating. Although studying it and watching fiction based on it isn’t exactly ‘buying into the gangster mystique’ is it? Far too difficult a life style for a non-socio/psycho-path IMO.

Take care,

Derek

Signature

“It is noble to be good; it is still nobler to teach others to be good—and less trouble.”—Mark Twain

I do sympathize with the bastards, the poor children who are alone, with out their parent. That is sad, and they deserve support, they don’t deserve to be cursed for life! That idea is so very bad, and abusing the victims.

The fagots are bad for you health, burning them in you mouth… the doctors are telling us not to smoke the tobacco any more. The gays are good people, they don’t deserve cursing them into Hell for forever, that is a horrible religious idea.

The bitches are a cute pet, with those wagging tails, and those ears standing up, the tongue out, and panting, the female dogs are as good as the male dogs. Talking about human women, as though there are just dogs, is abuse and sexist, don’t do that to women, humanists.

Is nigger all that we can say about black people, aren’t there any good black people who you know who are creative, smart, and kind blacks who have inspired you? Aren’t you inspired by Neil deGrasse Tyson, Barack Obama, Quincy Jones, B.B. King, Stevie Wonder, Lionel Richie, Forest Whitaker, Denzel Washington, etc.

Is sex really such a bad thing that it has to have its own unique accursed word, why curse the fuckers to Hell, is that another religious act?

Damn it… to where? Are people referring to the Hoover Dam when they say that, are they talking about damming a river for the sake of generating electricity? I doubt that, that sounds like another religious curse condemning someone or something to Hell.

Why would the people of the Enlightenment, why would Humanists want to recognize and support senses of those words that blame a victim child, that curse the gays to Hell forever, that are sexist abuse of women, broad-blanket all blacks negatively, that curse people with a sex life to Hell, or cursing anything you want to Hell?

So overuse the words to oppose those bad senses of the words, use them in a normal sense, or make up a fun sense, make them loose their bad senses in order to disempower the words, in the end they are just words. Why should they be a big deal and taboo, lurking in the background, OH MY where-o-where will they pop up next?

Geez, that Peter Price from Flagstaff isn’t very bright is he? Is he really saying that a question like, “Do you subscribe to metaphysics, superstition, bigotry or dogmatism?” isn’t biased and will lead to an objective answer? A first class klutz.

Occam

I don’t know if the rephrased questions would lead to more objevtive answers, but IMO, they would certainly lead to different answers.

Signature

Gary the Human

All the Gods and all religions are created by humans, to meet human needs and accomplish human ends.

Great points, Jump in the Pit. I’m not sure I could have done much better, but I must say, I like pussies, bitches, asses, cocks, sires, cows, bulls (but not their manure) and all other fowl, even the not so fowl, animals.

Signature

Mriana
“Sometimes in order to see the light, you have to risk the dark.” ~ Iris Hineman (Lois Smith) The Minority Report

Now, I think, it would be a good idea to flip my argument to disempower the curse words around. Now lets start making up some new curse words, these ones will be Humanist style! Well curse is really a religious act… so maybe I’ll banish some people here instead.

Tyrants, banish them to… to… no not to Hell, we are Humanists so… hummm… banish them to be exiled on some remote island, on the Rock or wherever. That makes a good banishment word, banish tyrants to the Rock.

So if we look at the existing curse words, they are very religious and elitist (who is more elite than the royals, hum?), these are really not democratic. Instead if we continue The Great Experiment, and take-on some banishment words, I think that we can see they look far more Enlightened than the usual curse words do. Don’t you think?

So why keep those bad, unEnlightened senses of those nasty curse words, when we are democrats and so are free to get rid of them, or even make up some new ones in the democratic traditions.

Rusticate them to their own most sordid perverted imagery of the world.

(Ooh, that sounds too mean…)

Signature

As a fabrication of our own consciousness, our assignations of meaning are no less “real”, but since humans and the fabrications of our consciousness are routinely fraught with error, it makes sense, to me, to, sometimes, question such fabrications.